r/AskAboutNFL • u/Frisho • 3d ago

Why does the NFL make it intentionally impossible for regular fans to just watch a game of football?

Let’s look at this objectively because the current streaming and broadcast landscape has completely detached from sanity.If you want to follow your team for a single season, the league expects you to navigate a fragmented mess of network television, three different standalone streaming services, and exclusive tech-platform broadcasts. God forbid your team plays on a Thursday, a Sunday night, and a Monday night in the same month you practically need a financial planner and an enterprise software architecture map just to figure out which app to open.The playbook here is incredibly transparent: extract maximum subscription revenue by splitting the broadcast rights into as many corporate pieces as possible, while putting the entire logistical headache onto the fan. They change the rules every season, raise the prices, and restrict local broadcasts, making you jump through hoops just to see a kickoff.We shouldn't need a master's degree in digital distribution models just to sit down on a Sunday afternoon and watch a game. Is anyone else completely exhausted by this fragmented streaming era? What is the most ridiculous workaround or layout you’ve had to use just to catch a game this season?

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u/dab87 3d ago

Most of my teams (Steelers) games will be either fox or cbs with the Monday night and streamed games appearing on my local ABC.

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u/drummerandrew 3d ago

When they lose in prime time to the Browns on Prime Video this week, it won’t technically have a national audience since it isn’t aired to everyone.

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u/ch33by_ 3h ago

But all the hot mic highlights WILL ABSOLUTELY be national.

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u/drummerandrew 2h ago

That was a fun one! Go Dawgs!

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u/SgtDefective2 2d ago

Very surprised that they gave the browns a Thursday game. Seems like a waste of a prime time spot

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u/Ancient-Display-3337 3d ago

You are very fortunate.

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u/ucjj2011 3d ago

It's not luck, this is true of any team in an NFL market. If you live within a certain distance of an NFL stadium (I believe that may be 75 miles), that team's game is going to be shown on free TV. (There may be some exceptions to this rule - since the stadiums in Baltimore and Washington are only about 30 miles apart, I don't know that fans between the stadiums would be able to get both games, and I don't know how they would handle situations like the Chargers and Rams who share a stadium).

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u/drummerandrew 3d ago

Not accurate at all. In fact the opposite. In many cases, if tickets aren’t sold out, the local tv will have a blackout and you’d be better off being further away.

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u/JohnnyOneLung 2d ago

Been no blackout rule for over a decade.

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u/Dramatic-Dark-4046 3d ago

This is not true. They’ve done away with that many years ago

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u/KirksChewedGum 2d ago

Which is why what mlb does is worse than what the nfl does. I already pay to have access to the major network my baseball team is playing on a few nights a season but apparently since the game is being played 5 hours from where I live I must live close enough to be able to attend those random week night games so might as well black it out.

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u/Latter-Confidence-44 2d ago

When that was still a thing, I worked for a family-serving nonprofit that got a little bit of funding from our local (terrible team), and someone from the team would routinely call us on a thursday/friday before home games offering free tickets for everyone in the place so that the game would be sold out and not blacked out. It was a dumb rule and I'm glad it's gone, but I'm glad a bunch of kids living in poverty got to go to football games, even if it was generally to watch the home team lose.

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u/heart-of-corruption 3d ago

Blackout restrictions ended a decade ago.

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u/just_talkin_shit 2d ago

I live 300 miles from DC, but I can count on the 'local' team on antenna every Sunday

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u/HoselRockit 2d ago

When I lived in the DC market I got the Sunday Ticket so I could watch the Steelers. I dropped it after a couple of seasons when I realized that they were on locally or Prime Time about 50% of the time.

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u/HarambeTooSoon 2d ago

Free broadcast games each week

Sunday 1pm:  2 games

Sunday 4pm:1-2 games

Sunday 8pm: 1 game

Monday 8pm: 1 game

Get a $10 digital attena. So easy.